Kobe Bryant and recently traded Derek Fisher posed together back in December, beginning what would be their last season leading the Lakers together. ALEX GALLARDO, AP

Andrew Bynum ices those precious knees after every game now.

He didn't use to. Yet he finally followed the lead of Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher.

Not just Bryant ... but Bryant and Fisher.

The Lakers' recent championships were ushered in by Pau Gasol being whisked through the trade door, but a foundation was laid in all those icepacks and shooting regimens and video studies that neither Bryant nor Fisher ever shrugged off.

Once Shaquille O'Neal's fun ethic was gone in 2004, Bryant underestimated the difficulty in getting teammates to follow his leading example. The youth and ignorance of those Lakers baffled and angered Bryant.

There was a moment when Bryant explained how few teammates seemed serious about their crafts by saying: "It was me and Luke." (Side note: Luke Walton was also an ideal teammate, and he texted me after being traded by the Lakers the same day as Fisher: "It was a good run while it lasted." Undone by his bad back, Walton had become such a nonfactor that this is the only context in which I can even use that quote from him.)

Fisher was released from his Utah contract in 2007, joined the Lakers and brought with him an internal hard drive of all the greatest wisdom and motivation from Phil Jackson and introspective veterans such as Byron Scott, A.C. Green, Ron Harper, Brian Shaw, Robert Horry and Rick Fox.

You look around the league and see Jordan Farmar in New Jersey and Trevor Ariza in New Orleans, and they're just guys now. With the Lakers, they were youngsters whose raw competitive edges were refined by the focus they witnessed and followed.

Fisher's departure now is a natural time to resurrect those sweet stories and savor them. Throw in the fact that Fisher was clutch on the court, and it's very nice and completely understandable to wish the Lakers could've found a happily-ever-after end for him.

The only realistic way that could've happened is if the Lakers had traded Steve Blake and kept Fisher to go with Ramon Sessions, which they were willing to do – except the additional year on Blake's contract made him tough to trade and I've been writing since the start of the season that Blake would be the main guy over Fisher by playoff time.

Maybe Fisher could've played spot minutes as Bryant's backup at shooting guard, but that doesn't jibe with the notion that the Lakers' second unit needs to get some easy baskets. That storybook scenario of Fisher retiring and coming back to help coach the Lakers is the most fanciful, because the guy flat-out does not want to coach.

The other fable that Fisher would not have been a distraction if he'd just been kept by the Lakers as a non-playing, locker-room guru behind Sessions and Blake (and rookie point guard Darius Morris) is equally scripted in naivete.

Despite being on nearly opposite ends of the NBA talent spectrum, Bryant and Fisher were the same: They worked, they prepared and that emboldened them so that they dared to step up and seize moments when others grew afraid.

Fisher, 37, still believes he can deliver – maybe not all the time, but at the right time. For him to go from Derek Fisher to Luke Walton overnight would've been the deepest cut of all, especially in this season that he as union president helped save.

Fisher might just now as he looks at his new No. 37 jersey as the Oklahoma City Thunder backup to star point guard Russell Westbrook be realizing what a win-win situation the Lakers' trade of him was: The Lakers pave the way for Sessions to do his thing without the ghost of Fisher past, and Fisher upon surrendering next season's guaranteed $3.4 million salary gets the freedom to chase another championship with a real contender in Oklahoma City.

Doing that cost the Lakers a first-round pick they forked over to the Houston Rockets in the trade of Fisher, but the Lakers got some financial savings, too. (Trading Fisher and that pick to escape the ghost of Fisher past, gain financial savings and get the upside of Michael Beasley instead of Jordan Hill would've looked a lot better, but too bad for the Lakers that Minnesota pulled out at the last moment.)

So if you short-sightedly speculate how much better the Lakers' focus or drive might be the rest of this season if Fisher was still around, you are living in the past as much as Lamar Odom.

With Sessions here and taking his job, there could not be the same voice from Fisher, whom Bynum so often hailed as the "great orator." This imaginary post-trade-deadline Fisher, even if he were a model teammate like Walton, could not possibly have the same impact in his teammates' ears, minds and hearts when never standing shoulder to shoulder with them on the court.

The Lakers are investing in the physical skills of Sessions – and trusting that Bryant, Gasol and head coach Mike Brown have a little more leadership to come.

Someone such as the rising Bynum, 24, still could use guidance – as seen by his lust for offense detracting from his team defense lately and his ego-driven ejection in Houston followed up by bumping rap music and loudly reciting lyrics on the team bus instead of being humbly accountable for what wound up a Lakers loss.

Yes, the Lakers' most golden era of professionalism is gone.

Then again, so is the triangle offense that didn't need a real point guard.

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